[ 3.8.y.z extended stable ] Patch "sched/fair: Fix small race where child->se.parent, cfs_rq might point" has been added to staging queue

[Kamal Mostafa]

This is a note to let you know that I have just added a patch titled

    sched/fair: Fix small race where child->se.parent,cfs_rq might point

to the linux-3.8.y-queue branch of the 3.8.y.z extended stable tree 
which can be found at:

 http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git?p=ubuntu/linux.git;a=shortlog;h=refs/heads/linux-3.8.y-queue

This patch is scheduled to be released in version 3.8.13.11.

If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to this tree, please 
reply to this email.

For more information about the 3.8.y.z tree, see
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/Dev/ExtendedStable

Thanks.
-Kamal

------

>From f584369ddb25aa1cde516a766410f75ebd2de171 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Daisuke Nishimura <nishimura at mxp.nes.nec.co.jp>
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 18:16:36 +0900
Subject: sched/fair: Fix small race where child->se.parent,cfs_rq might point
 to invalid ones

commit 6c9a27f5da9609fca46cb2b183724531b48f71ad upstream.

There is a small race between copy_process() and cgroup_attach_task()
where child->se.parent,cfs_rq points to invalid (old) ones.

        parent doing fork()      | someone moving the parent to another cgroup
  -------------------------------+---------------------------------------------
    copy_process()
      + dup_task_struct()
        -> parent->se is copied to child->se.
           se.parent,cfs_rq of them point to old ones.

                                     cgroup_attach_task()
                                       + cgroup_task_migrate()
                                         -> parent->cgroup is updated.
                                       + cpu_cgroup_attach()
                                         + sched_move_task()
                                           + task_move_group_fair()
                                             +- set_task_rq()
                                                -> se.parent,cfs_rq of parent
                                                   are updated.

      + cgroup_fork()
        -> parent->cgroup is copied to child->cgroup. (*1)
      + sched_fork()
        + task_fork_fair()
          -> se.parent,cfs_rq of child are accessed
             while they point to old ones. (*2)

In the worst case, this bug can lead to "use-after-free" and cause a panic,
because it's new cgroup's refcount that is incremented at (*1),
so the old cgroup(and related data) can be freed before (*2).

In fact, a panic caused by this bug was originally caught in RHEL6.4.

    BUG: unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at (null)
    IP: [<ffffffff81051e3e>] sched_slice+0x6e/0xa0
    [...]
    Call Trace:
     [<ffffffff81051f25>] place_entity+0x75/0xa0
     [<ffffffff81056a3a>] task_fork_fair+0xaa/0x160
     [<ffffffff81063c0b>] sched_fork+0x6b/0x140
     [<ffffffff8106c3c2>] copy_process+0x5b2/0x1450
     [<ffffffff81063b49>] ? wake_up_new_task+0xd9/0x130
     [<ffffffff8106d2f4>] do_fork+0x94/0x460
     [<ffffffff81072a9e>] ? sys_wait4+0xae/0x100
     [<ffffffff81009598>] sys_clone+0x28/0x30
     [<ffffffff8100b393>] stub_clone+0x13/0x20
     [<ffffffff8100b072>] ? system_call_fastpath+0x16/0x1b

Signed-off-by: Daisuke Nishimura <nishimura at mxp.nes.nec.co.jp>
Signed-off-by: Peter Zijlstra <peterz at infradead.org>
Link: http://lkml.kernel.org/r/039601ceae06$733d3130$59b79390$@mxp.nes.nec.co.jp
Signed-off-by: Ingo Molnar <mingo at kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Kamal Mostafa <kamal at canonical.com>
---
 kernel/sched/fair.c | 14 +++++++++-----
 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/kernel/sched/fair.c b/kernel/sched/fair.c
index 7d0374f..e9ab160 100644
--- a/kernel/sched/fair.c
+++ b/kernel/sched/fair.c
@@ -5755,11 +5755,15 @@ static void task_fork_fair(struct task_struct *p)
 	cfs_rq = task_cfs_rq(current);
 	curr = cfs_rq->curr;

-	if (unlikely(task_cpu(p) != this_cpu)) {
-		rcu_read_lock();
-		__set_task_cpu(p, this_cpu);
-		rcu_read_unlock();
-	}
+	/*
+	 * Not only the cpu but also the task_group of the parent might have
+	 * been changed after parent->se.parent,cfs_rq were copied to
+	 * child->se.parent,cfs_rq. So call __set_task_cpu() to make those
+	 * of child point to valid ones.
+	 */
+	rcu_read_lock();
+	__set_task_cpu(p, this_cpu);
+	rcu_read_unlock();

 	update_curr(cfs_rq);

--
1.8.1.2